An excerpt from Gunther Rothenberg's book "The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon" states that Napoleon was impressed enough by the use of military balloons that he took them with him for his military campaign in Italy in 1796. Later he took them with him to Egypt.

Ok - so whatever happened in Italy influenced and impressed him enough to take them on a later operation (1798).

Can anyone name a battle where he used a balloon? Maybe during the Quadrilateral operations?

Useful during operations where you could set up a base of operations that was relatively safe, a balloon was not very helpful during mobile operations because they took many hours to prepare and launch correctly. The conditions had to be good. High winds could ruin a good flight.

I am thinking that there were many days during the summer of 1796 in "sunny Italy" when he could have launched them for operations. Maybe to observe what was going on in Mantua?

Who is online

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum